This invention relates to an information transfer method and apparatus which can be applied for transferring video/audio data between a video server at, for example, a broadcasting station and a general-purpose computer.
Currently, a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is employed as a technique for data transfer between computers. In this technique, file transfer is carried out between two computers in the following manner. That is, file transfer is requested using a command, such as, "put" or "get", between an FTP server actuated on a remote computer and an FTP client actuated on a local computer, so that actual file transfer is carried out.
On the other hand, a technique for managing video/audio information on the file basis which is stored on a video server constituted by the remote computer, by using a general-purpose computer as the local computer, has been introduced at broadcasting stations, museums and the like equipped with a local area network (LAN).
Meanwhile, when specified files of video information among a number of files of video information stored on the video server are to be transferred, it is conceivable to select necessary video files by index retrieval using character data. In this case, quick retrieval of the necessary video files or quick retrieval by plural users is difficult.
Thus, it is considered to manage video files on the video server using a predetermined image for each video file.
However, since the FTP only allows data transfer on the file basis, transferring a whole video file is the only method for managing video files on the video server by the general-purpose computer by directly applying the FTP technique. This method is time-consuming. In addition, since the storage device like a hard disk drive (HDD) of the general-purpose computer is much smaller in capacity than the storage device of the video server, transfer of a whole file from the server may be impossible.